Bah!, Where they went wrong was when they gave up on the 68060 and went for the Power line. Why, by now I'm sure we'd be close to the 68090. Plus, put the 68060 in the Quadra platform and what do you have? The Sextra, that's what. Definitely "sexier" than naming it Power Macintosh XXXX/XXX.
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Did Apple Do The Right Thing in Moving To Intel From PowerPC???
- Thread starter rashdown_online
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My (Mid 2005) two year old 14" iBook G4 1.42GHz (142MHz system bus) with 32MB of VRAM runs plenty fast and can handle anything I throw at it. Were you serious? No hard feelings, I wasn't sure if you were saying it tongue in cheek?
Yes, I'm also glad Apple switched to Intel, my brand new Mac mini 1.83 GHz Core2Duo is awesome!
I feel the same my G4 iBook kicks ass
and my friend's PPC powerbook w/ 2Gigs flys as well.
HOWEVER,
the move to Intel was absolutely the right move as their MOBILE platform is the best in the business. For desktops, there may be other better chips, but for mobiles there is no comparison
I haven't read through all the posts in this thread, but since Leopard and everything else is now Universal Binary, doesn't this make Apple cross-platform. In moving to Intel, Apple merely included Intel and broadened its future platform options.
Intel operability opened the way for Windows to run natively and so immensely increased Mac marketability. Now there is a common platform which demonstrates how much superior OSX is. People are able to compare Apples with, well, lemons. And if they need to use Windows they haven't burnt their bridges in buying a Mac.
It's the best of all worlds.
Intel has the better mobile platform for now, but Apple is also free to pick and choose.
Intel operability opened the way for Windows to run natively and so immensely increased Mac marketability. Now there is a common platform which demonstrates how much superior OSX is. People are able to compare Apples with, well, lemons. And if they need to use Windows they haven't burnt their bridges in buying a Mac.
It's the best of all worlds.
Intel has the better mobile platform for now, but Apple is also free to pick and choose.
You think? As for the whole OS debate, OSX and Windows (XP that is) both have their strengths and weaknesses.
Os
As a user of three OS's; OS X, XP, and Vista Ultimate, I can firmly state that the strengths of OS X greatly outweigh those of XP and Vista, and the weaknesses of XP and Vista greatly outweigh those of OS X. XP is much preferred to Vista, in terms of functionality and speed. It's quite convenient to be able to run both OSs side by side (when necessary) on the same computer. This makes the differences between the two all the more vivid.
As a user of three OS's; OS X, XP, and Vista Ultimate, I can firmly state that the strengths of OS X greatly outweigh those of XP and Vista, and the weaknesses of XP and Vista greatly outweigh those of OS X. XP is much preferred to Vista, in terms of functionality and speed. It's quite convenient to be able to run both OSs side by side (when necessary) on the same computer. This makes the differences between the two all the more vivid.
I've made this same comment many times, and I think it shows a certain amount of prescience on Apple's part. What's been surprising since the initial announcement of OSX on x86 is how agile the company can be. Think of it, in less than a year, Apple transitioned from PPC to x86. That's a pretty impressive mark.
The UB allows Apple to maneuver around chip suppliers, changing architectures when it makes sense. As mobile devices become more and more important, this ability will be incredibly useful.
Granted, Microsoft was able to do the same thing with the XBox 360 (moving from x86 to PPC), but Apple did it with several different machines under very public scrutiny.
As for the Windows/OSX debate. It's been done to death, and there are camps on either side. Personally, I hate Windows, but I can see that other people find it useful.
QFT. I should like to add that I think there is a very good chance that Apple moved from OS9 basis to a Unix basis for OSX knowing that it would allow them to abandon IBM and move to AMD or Intel if they needed to. Imagine what Apple would have to do to port OS9 to Intel. It's so much easier if the core of your OS already runs on different processors.
Pfft. No comparison. Microsoft writes a simple operating system exclusively for the 360, and developers make their games exclusively for the 360. Microsoft don't have to cater for both at the same time. Apple do, and they are. Apple can't abandon their slightly older hardware, where as Microsoft can. The newer games couldn't even run on the old XBOX, so what's the point of supporting it?
(If Microsoft changed the processors in the 360 from Intel 360's to IBM 360's, then just forget what I just said)
And just look at the massive recalls Microsoft are having at the moment with their IBM 360s! So much for Intel having lower build quality, and further proof that Apple's quality control is still great, and that chip manufacturers are irrelevant in this instance.
Yes, I'm sure every text edit file you throw at it runs pretty fast but I'm sorry, this is 2008. Apple has lagged with **** PPC processors for DECADES. Can we please move on and forget about this fabled "New PPC Motorola G5, IBM 3GHz G5, IBM Laptop G5, G4 at 2.8GHz by 2004, G6 @ 4.6GHz". None of it is true. PPC NEVER delivered, from day one. Motorola promised Apple a 500Mhz G4 for launch, they delivered 450 MHz and then cloud only marginally update them once a year. IBM promised Apple a 3Ghz G5 in a 12 month time frame. They delivered a 2.2Ghz which Apple had to overclock to 2.5 with liquid cooling to try to save face...
GOOD FREAKIN RIDDANCE!!!
I still remember how Mac nerds would believe Apple when they posted "benchmarks" of how an 1Ghz G4 was 2-3 times faster than a 3GHz P4 lol!
And then, the G5 was 5 times faster than that G4 but only twice as fast as the 3.2Ghz P4 and of course once Apple switched to Intel, the Intel processor was twice as fast as the G5...
Agreed. Just with a lot less vehemence.
No. I remember this. I remember watching a demonstration. Apple claimed a 500 MHz G4 was 1.2 times faster than a 1GHz P3, and a dual core 500MHz G4 was twice as fast. I would expect that later results would be similar, ie. a G4 processor is about twice as fast clock for clock as a Pentium 3.
The G5 was hardly 5 times faster than a G4. Apple never claimed that. Maybe that a quad 2.5 GHz G5 is 5 times faster than a dual 1 GHz G4, but what's wrong with that? And it's pretty well known that the Core architecture was a hell of a lot more efficient than the "Pentium 4" architecture. So there's nothing wrong with the ranking 1) Intel Mac 2) G5 Mac 3) P4 PC.
Yes, IBM was crap, but it wasn't quite that crap.
I'm okay with the switch personally, but I would have LOVED to have been a Mac user when G4/G5 was king. To me, Intel just seems to make Apple lose it's uniqueness. I mean what's the difference now between a normal laptop and a Mac Laptop except for the freaking Apple logo? Not much as far as hardware goes... aesthetics is a different story.
And I'm not going to install Windows on a Mac. If I want Windows, I'll buy another brand computer. You are pretty much defeating the whole purpose. I hate it when people buy a Mac because some goob told them that Mac OSX was the greatest thing that ever existed and then the person doesn't know any better and buys the Mac and installs Windows on it and uses Windows more than OSX and then the person could have saved some money by just buying a regular laptop...
And I'm not going to install Windows on a Mac. If I want Windows, I'll buy another brand computer. You are pretty much defeating the whole purpose. I hate it when people buy a Mac because some goob told them that Mac OSX was the greatest thing that ever existed and then the person doesn't know any better and buys the Mac and installs Windows on it and uses Windows more than OSX and then the person could have saved some money by just buying a regular laptop...
Decades? How do you get decades out of any history of the PowerPC processors and Apple? The first PowerPC based systems were introduced in 1994, the first Intel based systems were introduced in 2006. The first PowerPC logic boards were designed to use either the IBM PowerPC 601 or the Motorola 68060 processors, depending on which could be delivered first, IBM won out (handily).
As for performance, the PowerPC processor was outperforming the best Intel consumer processors until around 2001. IBM was steadily creating faster processors, but Apple decided to go with Motorola's processors because of Altivec (a technology IBM always found to be rather dubious).
Motorola failed to put out significant 500MHz rated processors because of poor quality control. When Apple asked IBM to step in and help with G4 processor production for that first series of systems, IBM was able to produce G4 processors that were able to run at between 600 MHz and 700 MHz (IBM was already making G3 processors running at nearly 700 MHz by this point, but Apple didn't want to have G3 systems clocked faster than the fastest G4 systems).
Production quality and a lack of market interest for G4 processors by anyone other than Apple was what kept the G4 behind in the processor race.
After being stuck as the only customer for the G4 (and paying a premium for the processor because of it), Apple thought that the G5 was a safe bet. The G5 was being developed by IBM for their own needs, so Apple wasn't going to be the only one funding development of it.
Well, the original reason for IBM's need of the G5 disappeared. IBM thought they needed an intermediate processor to move their workstation and server clients from 32 bit systems (using the PowerPC 604e and POWER3 processors) to 64 bit systems (using the POWER4), and the PowerPC 970 was a hybrid that could natively run both 32 and 64 bit applications. When they found that this wasn't needed, they stopped putting their own funds into the G5's development (leaving Apple to fully fund it).
While some people think that speed was the issue... it wasn't. The G5s were more than fast enough against Intel's best offerings, and IBM had been making multi-core processors for years before the rest of the industry had jumped on the idea.
No, the straw that broke the camel's back in this case was Microsoft.
Microsoft decided to go into the gaming hardware market and turned to IBM to come up with a PowerPC processor to power their next series of gaming systems. IBM jumped at the prospect and developed a new processor just for this type of task. And then gave the production of that new processor priority over everything else... including G5 processors for Apple.
There are few things that get Apple as upset as when they can't meet demand, and now (thanks to IBM and Microsoft), it was happening with both the PowerMac and iMac lines.
Intel had been begging Apple to switch for years. Intel is more than just a processor company, they're a technology company. In the early 90s they came out with USB... but PC hardware makers wouldn't use it because DOS/Windows didn't support it, Microsoft wouldn't add support because not enough hardware makers were using it. It was frozen out of the market by this. But in 1997 Apple announced the iMac, and it's only exterior interface was USB. By the time the iMac was released, there were printers, scanners and exterior drives that used USB. The technology took off... because of Apple.
Because of this, Intel has been promising Apple favored status if they would switch to Intel. And the IBM/Microsoft deal was what pushed Apple to Intel.
And I would point out that Intel has kept it's word in treating Apple as it's premiere client. Apple may not be the largest buyer of Intel products, but it is the perfect showcase for them. That is the real difference between IBM and Intel for Apple. When G5 systems were used to make the third fastest supercomputer in the world, IBM didn't appreciate it the way that Intel would have.
So no amount of revisionist history is going to change the fact that the PowerPC processor was (for most of it's life) better than Intel's consumer line, and that fact doesn't take anything away from the fact that the move to Intel was the best choice. Why stay with IBM and be an afterthought when you could go to Intel and be moved to the front of the line any time you walk in the room!
Frankly I'm surprised we're even having this discussion. Apparently 66 people (as of this writing) thought Apple would have been better off under PPC. I loved the 'uniqueness' of the 68K and PPC line as much as anyone, but you've gotta be kidding to think that Apple isn't better off now.
yeah, i'd say they made the right decision.
i do sometimes feel that ppc was slower, yet more reliable, but i think it was just my imagination
i do sometimes feel that ppc was slower, yet more reliable, but i think it was just my imagination
I would have vote no but the polls closed. I strongly believe that Apple made a huge mistake by going for Intel. Fine, it can run Windows, which can be appealing. However, there was no real reason why we needed to switch over to a more inferior architecture. The PowerPC was a fantastic system and didn't need to be swapped over. They could've just went with P.A Semi's chip design with a 2.0 GHz core running approx. 15W, which is freaking fantastic, especially for laptops. It comes with a built in RAM and ethernet controller (like on the same chip as the CPU), which is also a plus.
Now, with Intel chips, all the Macs overheat like crazy and if I pour an egg yoke, it should be cooked within 10 minutes. I would have a less of a hesitation to buy a Mac if they stayed PowerPC as that was one of the incentives to move, for me at least. I've had it with Intel's crappy chip (especially with the Netburst screwup). Sorry, running at 60 degrees Celsius on Safari w/ 2 tabs open is not normal. Nor should it run at 82 degrees for Flash Player and having the fan revved up to 6200RPM. None of this happened with the PowerPC chips, and they said the G5 was too hot to run it on laptops ... my butt.
Also, it was unfair for Apple to compare a single core PowerPC chip to a dual core Intel chip. If the Intel chip required dual core to beat out a single core PowerPC chip, one may wonder what the hell was Apple thinking.
I was floored when Apple decided to defect over to Intel. I was losing hope, but the only thing that is making me hang on to Apple is its software ... who can resist the stable, fast and sleek MacOS X?
Now, with Intel chips, all the Macs overheat like crazy and if I pour an egg yoke, it should be cooked within 10 minutes. I would have a less of a hesitation to buy a Mac if they stayed PowerPC as that was one of the incentives to move, for me at least. I've had it with Intel's crappy chip (especially with the Netburst screwup). Sorry, running at 60 degrees Celsius on Safari w/ 2 tabs open is not normal. Nor should it run at 82 degrees for Flash Player and having the fan revved up to 6200RPM. None of this happened with the PowerPC chips, and they said the G5 was too hot to run it on laptops ... my butt.
Also, it was unfair for Apple to compare a single core PowerPC chip to a dual core Intel chip. If the Intel chip required dual core to beat out a single core PowerPC chip, one may wonder what the hell was Apple thinking.
I was floored when Apple decided to defect over to Intel. I was losing hope, but the only thing that is making me hang on to Apple is its software ... who can resist the stable, fast and sleek MacOS X?
RacerX, best post ever. Interesting, definitive and irrefutable. Mods, lock the thread now.
So are you trying to tell me that my G4 Cube has a Motorola CPU in it? I always assumed it was IBM.
And for interest, what year did IBM start work to make XBOX components?
Deltatux, remind me again exactly which Intel Mac runs so hot that it requires liquid cooling like the last gen G5 towers? And I don't care that my CPU idles at ~60˚C, nor that it goes up to ~80˚C, it is faster than what IBM could offer. I don't care that my fans can rev to 6000 rpm, they stay at 2000 for the most part, and are still reasonably quiet when running full speed.
And you really believe IBM could put a dual core CPU in a MBP, or even a Macbook Air, that would run faster than the Core 2s that are presently featured? I don't.
So are you trying to tell me that my G4 Cube has a Motorola CPU in it? I always assumed it was IBM.
And for interest, what year did IBM start work to make XBOX components?
Deltatux, remind me again exactly which Intel Mac runs so hot that it requires liquid cooling like the last gen G5 towers? And I don't care that my CPU idles at ~60˚C, nor that it goes up to ~80˚C, it is faster than what IBM could offer. I don't care that my fans can rev to 6000 rpm, they stay at 2000 for the most part, and are still reasonably quiet when running full speed.
And you really believe IBM could put a dual core CPU in a MBP, or even a Macbook Air, that would run faster than the Core 2s that are presently featured? I don't.
G4 was always Motorola (now Freescale). XBOX 360 components started way back around 2002.
More here on the X360 Xenon chip: http://www.reed-electronics.com/CA6328378.html
The PPC970 chip came out hot, expensive, and a nightmare to develop boards for -- look how many quality 3rd party machines made the G4-to-PPC970 switch.
An insanely complex little chip just to bring up to a stable clock.
The G4 was cheap, simple, and easy to work with ... the planned new g4 sales stealing market never came, and MS did.
Not good for the future of the chip, and the roadmap hit a dead end -- or a fork in the road.
---
The hot and expensive parts were easily solved ... what really hurt was the nightmare the chip development was, unless you called for IBM consultants and spent a lot on training.
The cost of that training killed a lot of the projects that were announced for the PPC970 -- like chipsets and machines by interested parties that never seemed to go beyond their original press releases.
An insanely complex little chip just to bring up to a stable clock.
The G4 was cheap, simple, and easy to work with ... the planned new g4 sales stealing market never came, and MS did.
Not good for the future of the chip, and the roadmap hit a dead end -- or a fork in the road.
---
The hot and expensive parts were easily solved ... what really hurt was the nightmare the chip development was, unless you called for IBM consultants and spent a lot on training.
The cost of that training killed a lot of the projects that were announced for the PPC970 -- like chipsets and machines by interested parties that never seemed to go beyond their original press releases.
Neither my Mac Pro or my MacBook have ever overheated, and neither of them has ever reached 60C, even when I'm pushing the hardware. And you're comparing the old Intel processors to the new ones, which is a mistake. The Core Duo series blows away the Netburst chips by a long shot. My old G4 iBook with a 1 GHz processor got hotter than my dual 2 GHz MacBook ever has.
Regarding why the dual-core machines didn't seem hugely fastercould it be because programs weren't multi-core aware yet? Most of Apple's apps weren't until Leopard, over a year after dual-core Macs were standard across the board.
I disagree - I find XP better than, say, Tiger - not really had much exposure to Leopard - but I suspect that it's really up to the individual user as to what they prefer for a particular task.
Whoa.
You know those silver suits that you see Scientists wearing when they are working on or near hot stuff like Volcanoes? I hope you've got one, because you're gonna get flamed!
Sure, I have XP on my MBP, but it is only there because I need it for Matlab, some games, and maybe a little SolidWorks. And I really want to get VMware Fusion soon so I don't have to use Boot Camp for Matlab anymore. The further I can get away from XP, the better.
Would you seriously rather use XP, that is slow, crashes all the time and is overly complicated, than OSX, which is simple, fast, stable, and just works? Or are you a troll? Or is this flamebait? Oh, I know. You're being sarcastic. That's it. The world makes sense again.
I guess you won't mind because it's not a laptop in a school environment or a library environment.
You serious? I don't know, I tested two iBooks, and compared it to 1 CoreDuo and 1 Core2Duo (one I have), and the iBooks were a lot cooler than the Intel chips. Of course, it's nothing scientific, but have never seen the PowerPC chip get hotter than the Intel chips, even on idle.